How do I Copy an error message to a text document, as text?

How do I Copy an error message to a text editor document (BBEdit, to be
specific) as just plain text (what I see in the notebook cell)?
I think I've now tried every possible Copy and Copy As . . . option in
the Mac front end menus for Mathematica 4.2, with the text selected and
with the cell bracket selected; and every one of them (fourteen cases in
all) gives me a messy version of the error message with a bunch of
formatting markup stuff inserted.
Frustrating!!!

Seigman:
Yasvir was correct in copying Input and Output Forms to plaintext.
However, that is not the MessageText you questioned, so I ran a few
quick experiments on my lunch break, and found with Mathematica 5.0.1
that even after converting the red MessageText to OutputForm, I was
still unable to "pull the text out". Bobby Treat's CopyAsInputForm
palette did not work, either. Nor did converting the MessageText cell
to TextForm.
If you are just posting examples from a larger calculation, then I
would recommend launching the MathKernel window. This does everything
in plaintext, and I use it to generate small examples for text-only
bulletin boards.
I am not aware of anyone posting a general notebook "text puller" yet,
but maybe someone could carry Bobby Treat's CopyAsInputForm a few
steps further for the rest of us who need to copy and paste plaintext
from whatever type of notebook cell it appears in. A text puller
would save folks much duplication of effort regenerating notebook
examples in a MathKernel window for text-only bulletin board posts.
Regards,
Harold

In article <bvt1vb$oog$1@smc.vnet.net>,
Harold.Noffke@wpafb.af.mil (Harold Noffke) wrote:
> Yasvir was correct in copying Input and Output Forms to plaintext.
> However, that is not the MessageText you questioned, so I ran a few
> quick experiments on my lunch break, and found with Mathematica 5.0.1
> that even after converting the red MessageText to OutputForm, I was
> still unable to "pull the text out". Bobby Treat's CopyAsInputForm
> palette did not work, either. Nor did converting the MessageText cell
> to TextForm.
Yes, when I was having the original troubles, I tried the Copy Input
from Above approach also, and it didn't work for me.
Haven't tried to reproduce it since, however.